The lost Mandate of Heaven : the American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, Geoffrey D.T. Shaw ; with a foreword by James V. Schall, S.J

The Resource The lost Mandate of Heaven : the American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, Geoffrey D.T. Shaw ; with a foreword by James V. Schall, S.J

The lost Mandate of Heaven : the American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, Geoffrey D.T. Shaw ; with a foreword by James V. Schall, S.J

Resource Information

The item The lost Mandate of Heaven : the American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, Geoffrey D.T. Shaw ; with a foreword by James V. Schall, S.J represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in San Mateo County Libraries.

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"Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven", a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. This devout Roman Catholic leader never lost this mandate in the eyes of his people; rather, he was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government, which resulted in his brutal murder. The commonly held view runs contrary to the above assertion by military historian Geoffrey Shaw. According to many American historians, President Diem was a corrupt leader whose tyrannical actions lost him the loyalty of his people and the possibility of a military victory over the North Vietnamese. The Kennedy Administration, they argue, had to withdraw its support of Diem. Based on his research of original sources, including declassified documents of the U.S. government, Shaw chronicles the Kennedy administration's betrayal of this ally, which proved to be not only a moral failure but also a political disaster that led America into a protracted and costly war. Along the way, Shaw reveals a President Diem very different from the despot portrayed by the press during its coverage of Vietnam. From eyewitness accounts of military, intelligence, and diplomatic sources, Shaw draws the portrait of a man with rare integrity, a patriot who strove to free his country from Western colonialism while protecting it from Communism."--Jacket

"Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, possessed the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven", a moral and political authority that was widely recognized by all Vietnamese. This devout Roman Catholic leader never lost this mandate in the eyes of his people; rather, he was taken down by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government, which resulted in his brutal murder. The commonly held view runs contrary to the above assertion by military historian Geoffrey Shaw. According to many American historians, President Diem was a corrupt leader whose tyrannical actions lost him the loyalty of his people and the possibility of a military victory over the North Vietnamese. The Kennedy Administration, they argue, had to withdraw its support of Diem. Based on his research of original sources, including declassified documents of the U.S. government, Shaw chronicles the Kennedy administration's betrayal of this ally, which proved to be not only a moral failure but also a political disaster that led America into a protracted and costly war. Along the way, Shaw reveals a President Diem very different from the despot portrayed by the press during its coverage of Vietnam. From eyewitness accounts of military, intelligence, and diplomatic sources, Shaw draws the portrait of a man with rare integrity, a patriot who strove to free his country from Western colonialism while protecting it from Communism."--Jacket

Cataloging source

YDXCP

Dewey number

327.73059709/046

Index

index present

LC call number

DS556.93.N5

LC item number

S53 2015

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

http://bibfra.me/vocab/relation/writerofforeword

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Label

The lost Mandate of Heaven : the American betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, Geoffrey D.T. Shaw ; with a foreword by James V. Schall, S.J